Busy arts festival gets off to a magical start
Performances by the Royal New Zealand Ballet and a theatre show that packs a powerful social punch are among the standout features of this year’s Nelson Arts Festival.
The festival, which started yesterday, boasts over 100 acts by local, national and international performers, from theatre, dance, music, and visual arts to poetry, as well as interactive shows and workshops.
Founders Heritage Park will be the ‘‘festival hub’’, with the Granary building converted to a cafe during the two-week event and hosting free entertainment like music gigs and visual arts shows.
Christchurch-based entertainers, Lizzie Tollemache and David Ladderman kicked off the festival with a slapstick show for children, titled the Messy Magic Adventure, at the Suter Theatre yesterday morning.
The pair are also performing an evening show based on 19thcentury New Zealand ghost stories.
‘‘We’re going from a crazy, magical children’s comedy through to the most frightening ghost stories that we could find for adults,’’ Tollemache said. ‘‘They couldn’t be more different.’’
Festival director Charlie Unwin said what made the 24th edition of the festival special was a record number of local performers.
This was due largely to Sounds Excellent, a show at the Nelson Centre of Musical Arts featuring several choirs, with 80 local performers.
Festival organisers had scored a coup by bringing the Royal New Zealand Ballet on board for the first time, he said.
‘‘They are doing a package of their 2018 programme, so you’ll have a little bit of Nutcracker ,a little bit of Mozart and some other things, as well as a sneak peek of their 2019 programme.
‘‘Lots of other festivals in the country, which we work with quite closely with, are looking at us with quite envious eyes about that one.’’
The festival also featured performances with a strong social impact, he said.
‘‘We like to have shows that don’t only entertain but also challenge, and Jane Doe is a show about rape culture.
‘‘It is the transcript of an actual rape trial, where the audience will be asked to come up on stage and read from the transcript as the prosecutor, as the defendant – it’s quite a powerful piece.’’
The popular Masked Parade and Carnivale are due to wind up the festival on Friday, October 26, with the theme ‘‘Weird and Wonderful’’.
About 9000 tickets were traditionally allocated during the festival, Unwin said, including the schools programme, which offered daytime performances, and shows in schools.
‘‘Lots of other festivals in the country . . . are looking at us with quite envious eyes.’’ Charlie Unwin, Nelson Arts Festival director